a new leaf
by queendementor
Summary: today is mary lou's first day of preschool. but will it go as smoothly as her mother hopes?


**a new leaf**

_a/n: uh...so you see...*hides*_

After the fourth daycare center told Mary Lou's mother that her daughter couldn't continue to go there, the woman wasn't quite sure what else to do with her three-year-old. It was clear that Mary Lou was perfectly happy to sit on the kitchen floor and play with leaves all day long, but her mother certainly wasn't happy to let her.

The truth of the matter was that Mary Lou had only become more difficult since she developed her leaf obsession. She wouldn't tolerate being asked to eat breakfast, put on her shoes, go to sleep, or even get up to go to the bathroom, as any one of those activities would interfere with her leaves. And when her mother finally forced her to do so, Mary Lou's screaming tantrums would go on for hours.

Her mother simply couldn't deal with it anymore. She needed a break from her daughter. If daycare wasn't working out, perhaps a preschool might be a better fit.

It didn't take long to find an ideal time to reach out. One night, Mary Lou's mother couldn't get her to bed until nearly four in the morning, and the next morning, the little leaf lover was more than content to take a nap in a leaf pile on the living room floor.

Taking care to avoid the leaves on the floor, as that very well could wake their owner up and set her off again, Mary Lou's mother finally reached the phone and called the first preschool on the list.

The first seemed willing to help until they learned that Mary Lou was likely to cry for hours if anyone even looked at one of her leaves strangely. The second hurriedly said they were full as soon as they heard who she was trying to enroll (which was unsurprising, as it was the preschool division of Mary Lou's second ill-fated daycare center.) The third was willing to take Mary Lou but not accept her leaves, which would only end badly for all involved.

But the seventh showed promise. According to the woman on the other end, they were willing to give Mary Lou a clean slate and forget about everything she'd done at her previous daycares. Including the time a little boy had touched one of her leaves without permission, causing Mary Lou to remove his belt and apply it to his backside.

Her leaves wouldn't be taken away. The preschool promised she could keep them, though she'd be learning to incorporate other things into her routine. They would make sure she remembered to do things like eat and use the bathroom, the things she often neglected in favor of her leaves.

At this point Mary Lou's mother was almost crying with relief. Someone was going to take her daughter off her hands for a few hours each day. Maybe she would even learn to behave.

And she'd learn to have relationships with real people, not just leaves she pretended to talk to.

-x-

The morning her daughter was due to begin preschool, Mary Lou's mother took it upon herself to get everything ready beforehand. She started breakfast early, found a friend for Sebastian (the leaf Mary Lou repeatedly insisted was lonely) and set her daughter's shoes by the door for later.

Now all they needed was to get the new preschooler ready to be there. But that wasn't so simple.

"No, thank you. Robert wants me to stay here with him."

Mary Lou's mother had absolutely no idea how her daughter could identify which leaf was which just by looking at it, but now wasn't the time. Robert the leaf didn't want to go to preschool, and Mary Lou's leaves always agreed with her.

"Robert can come with you," It seemed the best thing to do was humor her and pretend her leaves cared about anything at all. "And so can, er, Sarah..."

"No, Robert doesn't like Sarah. He says she's mean."

It figured the one name Mary Lou's mother randomly selected was the one leaf "Robert" didn't like.

"Well, who does Robert like?"

"He likes Tina."

"Then bring her."

Going forth from there took a while. Before she could eat breakfast, Mary Lou had to bring all the leaves she had slept with out of her room and dump them on the chair next to her. She had to ask if her leaves wanted anything to eat or drink, and when one of them said yes, she immediately jumped up to get it a glass of water.

After a few moments of watching her daughter help her leaf take a sip of water, Mary Lou's mother spoke.

"You are not taking all of those leaves to preschool with you."

Her daughter's face fell. "But why?"

Mary Lou's mother had been practicing her excuse for a week. "Because if you fill your pockets with leaves you already have," she said, "then if you find a new leaf at preschool that you want to take home, you won't have room for it."

Suddenly a grin formed on the toddler's features. She had never considered that there might be leaves at preschool. It was even enough to convince her to only bring her favorites.

(Mary Lou had a small pile of favorite leaves, but fortunately they all fit in the pockets of her dress. There was even enough room to allow her to adopt a few more if she so chose.)

With her leaves comfortably tucked away, Mary Lou didn't seem to mind when her mother took her hand and began their walk to preschool. In fact, she only stopped twice to pick up a fallen leaf, name it, and stuff it in her pocket to meet its fellow leaves.

As someone who adopted about ten leaves a day, this was quite astonishing.

-x-

From the outside, the preschool didn't look like much, just a stark white building with its name, _Grace Foundation Preschool,_ on the side. Only upon stepping inside were visitors greeted with an explosion of color.

Inside, bright colors adorned every surface, from the yellow walls to the hues of the children's drawings on them. As they took in their surroundings, a young woman emerged from a small office and addressed the pair.

"You must be Jeanne," she said, smiling. "And if I remember correctly, this is Mary Lou."

"And this is Peter!" Mary Lou proudly showed her one of the leaves she had found on the sidewalk.

"Peter is very nice," the woman said. "But why don't you put him back in your pocket? It's safer for a leaf to be in there."

Mary Lou's mother watched in amazement as her daughter carefully replaced her leaf in her pocket. She would have to remember what this woman had said when she needed Mary Lou to put her leaves away.

The woman, who gave her name as Miss Rebecca, led them down a hall to where the classrooms were located. She knocked gently on one of the doors.

"Our new arrival," she said.

Even after her daughter was gone, Mary Lou's mother stood in the hallway for a few moments. Soon, the days of leaf-induced tantrums would be behind them. That idea alone was enough to prepare her for whatever might happen in the first few days.

-x-

Though all the tables were a sensible brown, the chairs were blue, red, yellow, almost every color imaginable. The teacher, Miss Christine, offered Mary Lou a red chair. She immediately asked for a green one.

"Why would you like a green chair?" Miss Christine inquired.

Mary Lou looked at her like she was expected to know that already. She fished a leaf out of her pocket and held it out. "Because Gabriel is green," she insisted.

"In the spring and summer the leaves are green. But in the autumn, all the leaves turn red."

Mary Lou hadn't thought of that before. She seemed perfectly happy to accept her autumn leaf chair after that.

After everyone was seated, Miss Christine began to talk about the alphabet or the numbers or something else that had nothing to do with leaves, which meant that Mary Lou really didn't care. Maybe she could use some leaves as a pillow and take a nap?

"Mary Lou, please put your leaves away and pay attention."

So much for that. She wasn't sure she liked preschool. And how dare these people ask her to put her leaves away? Didn't they understand that the leaves would get lonely without Mary Lou's undivided attention?

After what felt like six weeks, the children were given an activity to complete. Miss Christine handed out papers with the letters of the alphabet printed on them, which they were meant to color. She also set a box of crayons on each table.

Now this was something that caught Mary Lou's attention. She could color the letters green like leaves, or maybe even red like her autumn leaf chair.

The little girl quickly found a green crayon, coloring the letters, the paper, and part of the table with it. But when Mary Lou looked up from her drawing, suddenly the green crayon no longer satisfied her.

Why? Because the little boy next to her, Elijah, had the red crayon. There was only one in the box, which meant that she absolutely had to have the one in his hand.

"Give me your crayon," Mary Lou demanded, abandoning her coloring and holding out her hand expectantly.

Elijah frowned. "No. I had it first."

Mary Lou narrowed her eyes at him. When this also failed to work, her hand shot out, snatching the little boy's crayon out of his hand.

She had just gotten back to work when she felt Miss Christine's eyes on her. "Mary Lou, give Elijah his crayon back," she said.

"No!"

After all she had gone through to get it, Mary Lou wasn't going to give up her red crayon for anything. Unless Miss Christine was offering her more leaves, she wasn't interested.

"I am going to ask you one more time. Can you give me the red crayon?"

Mary Lou tried to hold onto her new red crayon, but she found it unceremoniously pulled from her hand and given back to its rightful owner.

The toddler's eyes filled with tears. "Why does he get the green chair _and_ the red crayon?" she demanded. "It's not _fair_!"

Suddenly she found herself deposited on a chair in the corner of the room. "I think someone needs a time-out," Miss Christine observed, leaving her there and returning to the other children.

A decision was made. Mary Lou _hated_ preschool. Clutching a few of her leaves to her chest, she began to cry.

-x-

The next activity of the day was storytime. This, at least, was a little better. There was a story about baby leaves that Mary Lou's mother sometimes read to her. Maybe it would be like that?

When asked if she felt up to participating, Mary Lou decided she did. Besides, her leaves liked being read to, and she couldn't deny them that.

Wiping the excess snot and tears from her face, she picked up her leaves and went to sit with the other children. Her leaves were placed in her lap so that they could better hear the story.

Unfortunately, this story was not about leaves. There wasn't even a passing mention of leaves. There were rabbits and squirrels and other things of that nature, but no leaves. This simply wouldn't do.

When tossing her leaves in the teacher's direction failed to get her attention, Mary Lou resorted to shouting, "Where are all the leaves?"

"This story isn't about leaves, Mary Lou."

"Well, then, my leaves don't like it."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but would you please quiet down so the others can hear?"

"I still want a leaf story," Mary Lou reminded her, hopefully holding out a leaf as if that might affect the outcome.

"Leaf story!" This time, another little girl echoed her sentiments. As did two more. Before too long, half the preschool was begging for a story about leaves.

Seeing she was outnumbered, Miss Christine put the book down and stood, returning a minute later with a different book, this one with leaves adorning the front cover.

Mary Lou's face lit up at the very sight of it, and she and her leaves sat quietly for the remainder of storytime.

This was much better. If only it could last.

-x-

With the story concluded, Mary Lou watched, bewildered, as the other children found their mats and began to lie down. "What are we doing?" she asked.

"We're having naptime, Mary Lou," her teacher told her. She retrieved an extra mat from the closet and set it down on the floor. "This one is yours."

Now the little girl was torn. She didn't like naps, as her mother knew very well. But she could tell her leaves were getting drowsy, and they never slept unless Mary Lou did as well. It seemed she would have to take a nap to keep them happy.

By the time Miss Christine returned to check on her, Mary Lou was nestled in a makeshift bed of leaves, clutching one in her hand as she slept.

This period of peace lasted for about an hour, interrupted when Mary Lou woke up again, still snuggling her leaf. She sat up, her eyes scanning the room as she blinked the sleep out of them.

And that was when she saw it.

Around Mary Lou's third birthday, her mother had taken away her baby blanket, the one that not only looked like a leaf but made her look like one when she was wrapped in it. The one she'd had ever since she was born. She had torn the house apart looking for it, but the blanket was nowhere to be found.

But now she had found it. Her precious leaf blanket was now draped around the sleeping form of a little girl named Abigail.

As it happened, Miss Christine was reading a book and didn't notice what the children were doing. It would be another fifteen minutes before she would wake them up. Mary Lou had ample time to get her blanket back, and no one was going to try stopping her.

She gathered up her leaves and scooted to the end of her mat. Mary Lou could almost reach the blanket now, so she pushed herself just a bit forward until her little fingers grazed the fabric.

Unfortunately, Abigail wasn't quite asleep, and she saw everything. "Don't touch my blanket," she told Mary Lou.

"Leafy was mine first."

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

She tried to pull the blanket out of Abigail's hands, but she held on too tightly.

"He's mine!"

"Is not!"

"Is so!"

"Is not!"

It was then that Miss Christine saw what was going on and got up to separate the girls, but her intervention came too late. Seeing that simply using her words wouldn't get her the blanket, Mary Lou dropped the blanket and swung her fist into Abigail's face.

Abigail began to cry, and to Mary Lou's delight, she dropped the blanket. But before she could touch it, she felt her teacher's hand close around her wrist.

-x-

Mary Lou didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't Miss Christine leading her down the hall to the office and setting her down on a chair.

"We don't hit people, Mary Lou," was all she said before she closed the door, leaving the little girl alone.

A minute passed, then two, then three. The leaves were growing bored, and Mary Lou was as well. She needed to entertain them somehow, but what was there for a three-year-old girl to do in an office?

There were peppermint candies in one of the drawers. Mary Lou put one in her mouth, only to discover that she didn't like peppermint and spit it out into the nearest trash can. She looked at the pictures on the desk, but they were just of a bunch of people that she had never met or had the desire to meet. And when she pressed the button on a copy machine, it didn't do anything.

"Why do you have a machine that doesn't do anything?" Mary Lou said to herself.

This drew her attention to the paper on top of the copy machine. Maybe you had to have paper if you wanted the copy machine to operate?

The paper was out of her reach, so she had to climb onto the desk and stand on her tiptoes for good measure. But when she jumped down again, she had easy access to three sheets of paper.

Mary Lou put one of the papers in the copy machine and pressed the button again. Twice. This time, a slight smile graced her features as she watched it produce an identical sheet of paper, as white as the first.

She reached for the paper, wanting to do it again. But a sudden thought stopped her before she could reach for it.

What if...?

It would never work.

But she was determined enough to try.

Her newest leaf, Peter, was pulled from her pocket and carefully placed in the copy machine. "It's okay, Peter," Mary Lou told him, gently patting her leaf. "It won't hurt. And I'll be here the whole time."

Having reassured Peter, she gently poked the button again.

Mary Lou didn't expect her little plan to work. She assumed Peter would get stuck in the copy machine and she would have to pry him out. But as she watched, the copy machine produced another, perfectly identical leaf.

Her little eyes widened.

"Leaf machine!"

This she repeated for several minutes, making a decent pile of new leaves. Once she was finished, Mary Lou sat on the floor beside them, happily naming these new additions to her collection.

"I'll call you Noah," she said to one of the leaves. "And _you_ can be Hannah!"

She was halfway through this process before the door clicked open. Miss Rebecca looked at the display inside the office, the little girl surrounded by a pile of leaves. She watched, unsure what to say, as Mary Lou murmured something to herself, picked up one of the leaves, and ran it through the copy machine.

"Should we call her mother?" she whispered to Miss Christine.

A pause. "Yes," she answered. "I think that would be best."

-x-

After all this time, Mary Lou's mother had learned to expect a phone call every time she dropped her daughter off somewhere. Despite her hope that Mary Lou would be able to get through the day, she wasn't surprised when she heard the phone ring.

When she arrived, she looked at the clock. It was a quarter to one. At least she'd lasted half the day.

Miss Rebecca was waiting for her, just as she'd been when they arrived. "Good afternoon, Jeanne," she said.

"Same to you. Now would you be so kind as to tell me exactly what Mary Lou did this time?"

A sigh. "According to her teacher, she got into a fight over crayons, and ended up punching another child in the face. I'm told these were two separate incidents."

Unfortunately, Mary Lou's mother couldn't give any indication that she was surprised. This was nothing Mary Lou hadn't already done at a previous daycare.

Miss Rebecca returned to her office and brought Mary Lou out to her mother. "Look, mama, I made leaves in the leaf machine!" she announced triumphantly, holding up one of her new additions. "I want a leaf machine, too."

"I see that," her mother said, deciding she'd ask what a "leaf machine" was later. "And I heard that you punched someone in the face."

This earned a pout. "She took Leafy, mama!" Mary Lou insisted. "I just wanted him back!"

"For the last time, I did not give that thing away!" Jeanne told her. "I threw it out because you are too old to be dragging the thing around. You hit that child for no reason, because that was not your blanket."

"Yes, it was!"

Jeanne pinched the bridge of her nose. There were certain times (most times, really) when Mary Lou was impossible to reason with, and this was one of those times.

She took her daughter's hand and turned to leave, only to be stopped when Miss Rebecca cleared her throat.

"Miss Christine wanted you to have this," she said as she handed Mary Lou's mother an envelope.

Most likely, this was a fine for unleashing Mary Lou upon the children of the daycare. It wouldn't be the first time. Stuffing it into her coat pocket, she and her daughter left the daycare.

-x-

The walk home was conducted in silence. As soon as Mary Lou took her shoes off, Jeanne deposited her in the time-out chair. Upon noticing that she seemed more interested in playing with her leaves than thinking about what she had done, she put the leaves in time-out on a separate chair.

"You're mean," her daughter said. "The leaf machine's nicer than you. He makes me leaves."

"Well, good for him!"

She left her daughter sitting there and reached into her coat pocket to see how much she would be expected to pay the preschool. She hoped it wouldn't be too much. Jeanne doubted she would forget the last time this had happened, when the damages were so costly she and Mary Lou had to eat pea soup every meal for a week.

Hesitantly, she lifted the folded paper from the envelope.

_Perhaps Mary Lou simply isn't ready for preschool,_ the note read. _She is still rather young, and perhaps what preschool requires of her is simply beyond her capabilities right now._

That much was apparent.

_Maybe, in a few months, we could revisit this?_

Jeanne exhaled deeply. In a way, this was almost worse than a fine.

Because for most children, a few months was enough. But what would they do in the six years it would probably take for Mary Lou to be able to handle a single day of preschool?

_if you read this, i apologize._


End file.
